Lust is not love, boo, but a thousand bucks is a thousand bucks. Plus, I'm not convinced I 'need' it. I'm surfing fine on my 5'9" Revolution. Although, I did just buy a 9'4" Takamaya for $400 from a mate who's had to give up surfing because of a bad knee. It'll be good for down the coast and taking the kids tandem.

I'd like to think I would get involved pretty quickly if I witnessed anything like this.

Plenty of women surf at my local these days. Some are more than competent. Others less so but all conduct themselves well in the surf and easily fit in as part of the crew.

I know Rebecca Olive who is quoted in Nick's article. A very nice person and a well respected member of the Brisbane Boardriders group.
Is there less aggression in the surf these days? I'm not sure. It probably gets more mileage now because of social media and a general increase in knowledge about personal rights.

I'd like to think I would get involved pretty quickly if I witnessed anything like this.

Plenty of women surf at my local these days. Some are more than competent. Others less so but all conduct themselves well in the surf and easily fit in as part of the crew.

I know Rebecca Olive who is quoted in Nick's article. A very nice person and a well respected member of the Brisbane Boardriders group.
Is there less aggression in the surf these days? I'm not sure. It probably gets more mileage now because of social media and a general increase in knowledge about personal rights.

Something to think about - in my experience in crowded waves (of which I avoid for the most part), you see some guys and some girls taking more than their share. Some men who are often paddled past by other men build up some sense of anger but don't make a confrontation and then when a woman does it they take it all out on them picking on the [perceived] weakest link. Maybe the woman hasn't even taken more than her share but it is still perceived that way, and the average joe would perceive themselves as getting less than their share.

Obviously this doesn't account, nor excuse, for many of the tales above but maybe some circumstances.

Never. But then there's almost never women in the water at the breaks I surf. I wonder if this is mainly a feature of countries* like Australia and most of South America with 'traditional' attitudes towards women (the little woman should be protected from herself by the big strong male) where some blokes just can't handle the perceived challenge to their machismo of sharing waves on an equal footing with women. There's an old thread on here about Layne Beachley entering a men's CT event in Australia and, with a couple of exceptions (Larry, chrisb), the over-riding message was that she wasn't fucken welcome and she made a fucken fool of herself

* the Israeli is the outlier, obviously, but all bets are off with those mad cunts

Nothing. There's a pretty small population of competent female surfers here anyway and I always do my best to surf where the crowds aren't. (Of course, I'm excluding kids messing about and adult learners from this. The gender split seems near enough 50:50 in that cohort)

Whenever it's big and gnarly, i.e. hurricane surf, nor'easters, etc, 99% male surfers out in it in NC.
Warm small glassy days, heaps of girls, and far too many have little idea of basic surf etiquette. Dropping in and ditching boards are two very common occurrences.

I have to come here to Realsurf to suckle at the bosom of our fellow female surf compadres.
Hold on, umm, there were some here a while back.
Maybe they're all over at beach grit.